In addition to courage, Lao Luo also needs a little "luck".
Text / Liu Fan
"The Last Stubborn Man" – People magazine's assessment of Luo Yonghao.
Even such a stubborn and stubborn person has to bow his head in the face of reality. In order to pay off the debt, he put down his face and became an anchor with goods. More than two years later, "True Legend" is about to usher in the finale, but Lao Luo also said that he no longer has the courage to make mobile phones - "because he wants to burn investors' money".
At the end of last year, Lao Luo said that he would do the "meta-universe" after paying off his debts; this year, the media said that his entrepreneurial direction was VR/AR/MR (virtual reality / augmented reality / mixed reality); finally, Lao Luo himself confirmed that the entrepreneurial direction would be AR.
Lao Luo's not doing mobile phones is not only because he does not have courage, but also because he has enough "courage". The courage of the past did not allow him to retire, and it is obvious that doing AR and metaversics requires more than just courage.
Let go of the phone obsession
It is difficult to say that Lao Luo is obsessed with mobile phones, or unwilling to the premature death of hammer technology, or from the bottom of his heart that he is the "successor" of The Spirit of Jobs, even if he has been carrying goods for two years, his high talk about the mobile phone market has not decreased.
He asked Apple CEO Tim Cook, "Is your product team completely out of control now?" "; to the Redmi marketing department said "recommended dismissal", because Redmi new machine promotional copywriting "borrowed" hammer technology copy ...
Every time as long as he is afraid, the industry will always emerge "Lao Luo is back" voice, some time ago to denounce the operator's CRBT package also triggered a burst of national criticism.
Although he has left Hammer Technology for nearly three years, Lao Luo is still accustomed to using a hammer mobile phone, and he can see it on Weibo and daily live broadcasts.
But no matter how old Luo can't put down the mobile phone, the mobile phone market can't tolerate him.
In 2012, Hammer Technology was established, although it was 1-2 years later than the many smartphone brands at that time, but the smart phone is still in a period of rapid growth, leaving Lao Luo with many opportunities.
However, it is a pity that The first mobile phone of Hammer Technology was not late until 2014, and Xiaomi, which was established two years earlier and released the mobile phone three years earlier, has become the first in China with an annual shipment of 60 million units. Just two years later, China's smartphone shipments peaked at 470 million units.
According to IDC data, since 2017, domestic smartphone shipments have fallen all the way, only slightly increasing by 1% in 2021, which is still due to the 5G promotion and the excessive impact of the epidemic in the previous year.
In the incremental market, Hammer Technology has a total sales volume of tens of millions. In today's more competitive and shrinking stock market, Lao Luo's return to mobile phones is tantamount to a second "suicide".
Therefore, no matter how much Lao Luo has feelings for mobile phones and how persistent he is to the spirit of Steve Jobs, the mobile phone market cannot tolerate his ambitions.
The "rebellious" metaverse
When the concept of meta-universe was hot last year, Lao Luo just sent a Weibo: Our next entrepreneurial project turned out to be a so-called "meta-universe company". Choosing to announce his next entrepreneurial project at this point in time, it is difficult to say that there is no suspicion of "rubbing hot spots".
However, in the face of the "metaverse" that has been hyped up, Lao Luo once again showed his "stubbornness" - I have publicly clarified many times, what I want to do is AR, not VR, zuckerberg's definition of the VR "metaverse", I do not believe ... Well, I guess he doesn't believe it himself, he just said (for some reason), who of you believes in whom xx.
After all, the metaverse understood by the public from movies, literature and other works is not only full of romance, but also very distant. Lao Luo chose to be down-to-earth this time, but it seemed a bit unexpected.
On the other hand, compared with VR, the public's understanding of AR is also relatively vague.
In simple terms, AR is the acronym for Augmented Reality, or "augmented reality," where virtual images and data on the device can interact with reality. General mobile phones, tablets and other devices with cameras can mostly implement AR technology after installing AR software, such as the mobile game "Pokémon Go" that was on fire in previous years.
iPhone and iPad have developed AR platforms as early as a few years ago, and Apple's ecology also has many AR applications, especially after supporting LiDAR lidar, Apple is a leader in the AR field.
However, due to the small number of AR application scenarios, most users have not really felt this technology, and the most used may be the AR Easter egg of Apple's conference invitation.
In addition to mobile phones and tablets, AR glasses are also a major mainstream, including Google, Microsoft and other technology giants have launched AR glasses, but they have not been able to popularize them as the smart phones of the year.
Although Lao Luo does not have the courage to do mobile phones again, the relationship between AR and mobile phones is still very close, and the experience accumulated in the mobile phone market in the past may still play a role in the AR industry.
In addition to courage, Lao Luo also needs "luck"
ZAKER Technology has experienced the AR glasses released by OPPO last year, but both the function and the practicality are quite rudimentary. As mentioned above, both AR and the metaverse are still very distant in the future.
The AR market seems to be on the eve of the smartphone revolution – some manufacturers have begun to explore AR devices, but there is no revolutionary product like the one that Jobs released when he released the iPhone in 2007.
Therefore, Lao Luo dared to have the "courage" not to do the old business and go to this new track. After all, the industry has not understood what AR should be like.
For Lao Luo, this is back to his area of expertise.
At Hammer Technology, although Lao Luo may not be a qualified CEO, he is a pretty good product manager - which is why he thinks he can inherit the mantle of Jobs. Especially in terms of software, Hammer Technology has developed creative functions such as "One Step", "Flash Capsule" and "Big Bang". Until now, they have basically been "borrowed" by other Android manufacturers.
To give AR a new definition, Lao Luo is not without opportunities.
Lao Luo once forwarded an article by Xu Wu, the founder of Maoyan Film and an investment partner of Zhen Fund, in which he wrote, "(Meta-universe) will experience many trial and error and multiple bubbles before the advent of a truly popular device." Enter at the wrong time, even if you are the largest factory in the universe, it is no play. "
Even Apple, which is now unique, has confirmed this statement - Apple released the Apple Newton tablet in the 1990s, and earlier the GRiDPad made by GRiD Systems in 1989. But as we all know today, the iPad released in 2010 really ushered in the tablet era.
That being the case, the key to starting a business for Lao Luo is that now is the right time to enter?
But before that revolutionary product came out, no one knew the answer to that question.